How to build the right avatar for your corporate chatbot

By Danny Bradbury

Companies can choose a range of avatar
forms and likenesses for their chatbots to fit audiences and use
cases

Cognitive functions and emotional intelligence are the
main determinants of avatar success

Nearly a decade ago, the team that created Siri had a decision to
make. Should they give Siri a humanoid avatar to go along with her
voice interface? Or should they render her on screen as she remains
today: a small undulating orb, hovering quietly in the background?

Ultimately, they ditched the avatar, but it was a more out of gut
instinct than empirical research. As Shawn Carolan, one of Siri’s
early investors, told Forbes a few years
later, “If Siri looked like me or you, maybe our friends would use it
and like it, but somebody in a different part of the world would not.
So, we figured if it was just a name and a nice voice, people could
put their own face on it.”

Many more companies today are facing the same dilemma, only now the
stakes are higher and the choices more complex. AI chatbots and
assistants are no longer just the province of giant tech companies
like Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft. They’ve evolved into a category of
business applications that’s growing 25% annually and estimated to
save businesses $8 billion per year in costs by 2022, according to Juniper.

Chatbots powered by AI are already handling phone and even video
conversations with customers, helping to reduce the cost of support.
In the future, virtual assistants could wind up handling most basic
support requests, experts say.

“Two to three years ago I wouldn’t have expected the kind of quality
of interaction and the expectation that AI will understand you,” says
Austin Tate, professor of knowledge‑based systems at the University of
Edinburgh and director of the Artificial Intelligence Applications
Institute. “I am surprised now when it doesn’t.”

Because virtual assistants are getting smarter and more capable,
companies are assigning them tasks that only humans could do in the
past. This raises new questions: How do companies make customers and
employees feel comfortable interacting with virtual agents? Should
they set them up as faceless tools with customizable voice and gender?
Or should they design ethnically ambiguous, 3D human avatars such as
Autodesk’s Ava, with
thousands of programmed facial expressions designed to respond to
every nuance of your interactions?

There isn’t a set playbook, at least not yet. Companies are
following their own cues and knowledge of their customers’ needs to
figure out the right form factor for each virtual agent.

Avatar diversity

Today’s AI avatar population are a diverse bunch. When it comes to a
defining characteristic such as gender, many companies have moved away
from an older standard of deferential female characters or voices
toward a broader mix of genders. Others offer genderless avatars or
male‑female tandems such as X.ai’s virtual assistants Andrew and Amy.

Some AI technology providers, such as New York‑based IPsoft, have adopted a hyper‑realistic
approach. In 2014, IPSoft launched Amelia, an AI
chatbot platform fronted by a 3D avatar that they produced by
digitizing the features and movements of real‑life model Lauren Hayes.

Similarly, the Pasadena, CA‑based startup Oben created PAI, an
AI that allows individuals to create detailed virtual replicas of
themselves that can interact with their contacts or customers when the
flesh‑and‑blood person isn’t around. The company is also developing
AI‑driven celebrity avatars that might one day interact with fans.

Other companies use animated avatars for very grown‑up tasks. Baidu’s
Melody looks like a
character from a Pixar film, but she helps Chinese physicians diagnose patients.

The range of use cases help explain why IPsoft has adopted a
mix‑and‑match product strategy, says Jonathan Crane, the New York City
tech company’s commercial director. IPsoft sells chatbot technology to
businesses in more than a dozen industries. The tech includes a 3D
avatar called Amelia along with the cognition technology and
algorithms that support customer interactions.

If they wish, IPsoft customers can replace Amelia with simpler
avatars that reflect their brands. One medical supply company chose
that option to provide IT support for its 45,000 employees. As a
result, average call times have plunged from three minutes to 30
seconds with a 95.9% success rate.

For other companies, the hyper‑realistic approach has proven a
better fit. AI company Soul Machines
created the ultra life‑like Cora for NatWest, a major retail and
commercial bank in the UK. Digitally modeled after a female engineer
at Soul Machines, Cora handles over 200 banking queries, freeing call
center employees to handle more complex issues. Ironically, the more
human‑like avatar proved especially appealing to bank branch customers.

The smarter the better

When it comes to chatbots, brains trump beauty. The cognitive
abilities of chatbots have advanced significantly in recent years,
thanks in part to ever‑cheaper GPUs that can handle the insatiable
compute demands of machine learning algorithms.

Users increasingly expect chatbot experiences to match the quality
of interaction with human agents. Advanced natural language processing
isn’t enough, experts say. To hold their appeal, avatars must be able
to interact in context. Chatbots need to be able to switch context—to
stop helping a person with one issue and instantly address another—and
then go back to the original issue. “Human dialogue is complex and
nonlinear,” says Allan Anderson, IPSoft’s director of enterprise solutions.

Context‑switching can help users complete transactions in lengthy
processes such as applying for car insurance. Conventional chatbots
can only follow a scripted process. If a customer wants to change an
earlier option, such as selecting third‑party insurance or adding
another driver, a context‑switching AI can handle it without handing
off to a human operator, which frustrates customers and spikes costs.

As for those human agents or NatWest’s bank tellers, they needn’t
worry, at least not yet. Research shows that when faced with more
complex or big‑ticket interactions with chatbots or AIs, people still
want people to help them out.